Jonny Rodgers plays wine glasses. He does more than that, of course — he loops his own ethereal voice over itself, electric guitar, keyboards, and programmed drum-and-basslines, combined with exquisitely simple and heart-rendingly personal songwriting about love, loss, and loneliness — but if that isn’t new, it isn’t old, either. What is new is the…
erin rae & courtney marie andrews @ steel string brewery
Speakers In Code favorite Erin Rae rolled into town on Friday night with Seattle songwriter Courtney Marie Andrews in tow, and it was the loveliest night, of women with big voices singing smart, thoughtful songs. Courtney sounds like a young Joni Mitchell, and Erin Rae impressed me even more this time around than she did…
film review: muscle shoals
I’ve been thinking about Jason Isbell a lot lately. For a couple of reasons: first, writing about the origins of blog name sent me looking through 2009 photos for some good ones of Jason; I haven’t photographed him since then, so it was a trip down memory lane for the shows I did. Second, because…
link: the head and the heart – let’s be still review
I wrote about the Head and the Heart’s Let’s Be Still for Speakers in Code: A band like THATH, whose first album exploded in such an organic way, has a lot of weight on their shoulders in producing a second one, and while I don’t think there’s a song on Let’s Be Still that’s as…
life list: 100 foods, 100 counties
One off the 100 foods list … Hot Dipped Fried Chicken from Keaton’s Barbeque, in Cleveland, NC, Rowan County. I need to go back because I think the chicken suffered from a drive to Augusta, GA, in my trunk, which is not Keaton’s fault. But when they say hot, they mean hot. The spice is…
goathouse mondays are BACK
We’ll go back to themed kitties next week, but for now, just look at that face. Don’t you just want to kiss it all up? Goathouse hosted a benefit on Friday night, and you might want to go read about it, but be warned: it is definitely full of animal cruelty triggers, if that upsets…
concert: dance concert for shelter animals
There’s a few things in here I discuss — including animal cruelty — that might be triggering to people, so please be aware. Last night Haw River Ballroom hosted a concert / benefit put together by Goathouse Cat Refuge — who y’all know that I volunteer with — in support for the shutting down of…
song share: kathleen grace – ‘no place to fall’ (townes van zandt)
Los Angeles country singer/songwriter Kathleen Grace wasn’t on my radar before this cover, but she certainly is now: this is a honest and true cover of one of Townes’ best (and most heartbreaking) songs, the same kind of desperate love and crushing loneliness rolled up together in the more-covered ‘If I Needed You’. Grace’s voice…
concert: surfer blood @ cat’s cradle
Over on Speakers In Code. Team Spirit was the second open, and their furious brand of crashing poppy garage punk was just absolutely compelling. Hook-filled, and noisy, and they just looked like they were having so much fun playing. Their bassist was a dervish of the Frank Iero variety, their lead singer looked like Weird…
words: where my domain name comes from
Occasionally when I give someone my card, they ask me where my domain name — my Twitter user name — comes from. It is, at this point, a clever play on the fact that I work hard to make sure that my concert photographs don’t look like everyone else’s concert photographs, but it was, originally,…
brand new kind of photography 